Family, friends recall rampage victims

Aspiring actress Courtney Aoki predicted in a 2010 YouTube video that she would be in the public eye in five years.

She didn't live that long.

Aoki, 20, was identified by law enforcement as the first of three people killed in an early-morning shooting rampage Tuesday by a Ladera Ranch man, who then killed himself.

Under the alter-ego Kitty Kitanna, Courtney borrowed from James Dean in a quote on her Facebook page: “Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.”

Courtney's mother, Annette Aoki, remembered her daughter squeezing all she could out of life. She was preparing to go to school to become a massage therapist, she said.

“I can't believe it. I will never see her again,” said the grief-stricken mother, 59.

Annette remembered her daughter as a free spirit who went from dressing all in black to wearing splashy theatrical garb. She may not have been a professional actress, but she was indeed a performer. Courtney was especially interested in vampires and zombies, making home movies with her friends.

With multiple piercings and tattoos, Courtney – or Kitty Kitanna – looked out on the world above heavy eyeliner, displaying a natural beauty. She sometimes used makeup to become Lady Gaga or the Black Swan.

She lived on the fringe and pursued her acting dreams in auditions that never panned out.

“I always told her to be careful, you don't know who these people are,” Annette Aoki said. “She was a very smart girl, book smart, not so much street smart.”

Annette Aoki said Courtney had taken her laptop computer with her on the night she died. Annette speculated that she took it to Ali Syed's bedroom to sell.

At 4:45 a.m.?

“She was a night owl,” Annette Aoki said.

Courtney Aoki's death brought a double blow to Annette and her other daughter, 13-year-old Kristi. Financial problems may force them out of their Anaheim apartment.

“It's just one thing after another,” Annette Aoki said.

How Courtney knew Ali Syed and why he turned a weapon on her remains a mystery to investigators. They also are trying to determine why he shotgunned his way through Santa Ana, Tustin and Orange, hijacking car after car, killing Jeremy Lewis, 26, and Melvin Edwards, 69.

Orange County Sheriff's Department officials described Syed as “a loner, a gamer” who spent most of his time playing video games in his bedroom in the house where he lived with both his parents.

The type of games was not immediately clear. Investigators searched the home after the shooting and took with them a computer and cellphone belonging to Syed, said sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino.

Those items have been sent to the Regional Computer Forensic Lab. What is contained in the files of that computer is unknown, investigators said.

But police are trying to learn what made Syed snap.

Relatives and friends of the victims also were perplexed.

The Bruery in Placentia donated 100 percent of Thursday's proceeds to the family of Lewis to cover his funeral expenses.

Aaron Horwitz, general manager of The Bruery tasting room, said: “Our employees didn't really know Jeremy, but it is something you see in your community. And you have an opportunity to help.”

“We are trying to do something for somebody else,” he said. “We just want people to come in and donate. They don't even have to buy anything.”

Horwitz expected to see more than the $1,500, which is what The Bruery usually makes on a Thursday night.

Lewis played pickup soccer with Horwitz for a Los Alamitos team. The rest of the soccer team got together Thursday in his memory.

Courtney's former boyfriend, Roger Azevedo, 22, reflected on their two-year relationship and her struggles to get an acting or modeling job.

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